Ultramares Corp. v. Touche gets two tracks, negligence and fraud, because the New York court rejected one claim and revived the other; AC502's Unit 3 case brief keeps them apart. Searches like "ac 502 unit 3 assignment example", "ac502 unit 3 sample" and "ac502 unit 3 example" land here.
What a finished AC502 Unit 3 case brief looks like
Roughly two pages under labeled headings, with issue, holding and reasoning run twice. The caption names the New York Court of Appeals and the 1931 decision. Facts are held to what the court used: auditors certified a rubber importer's balance sheet at December 31, 1923, and supplied thirty-two numbered copies, knowing they would be shown to banks and creditors; a factor, never named to the auditors, lent money on the strength of one copy; the importer was insolvent, its receivables swollen by fictitious entries. Procedural history takes two sentences. Negligence comes first: the issue, a holding of no duty absent privity or something close to it, and the reasoning. Fraud follows under the same three labels and reaches the opposite result. A short comment explains what later New York cases did with the rule.
How a AC502 Unit 3 example is structured
The brief is organized around the decision's two answers, because a single issue heading would force one of them into a footnote. Facts are pruned to the three the reasoning turns on: the auditors' general knowledge that copies would travel, the absence of any named lender, and receivables the audit should have questioned. The negligence track states the rule, that negligence liability reaches only those in privity or a relationship approaching it, then gives the opinion's policy concern: liability in an indeterminate amount to an indeterminate class. It sets Glanzer v. Shepard aside, since that weighing was done for the very buyer who sued. The fraud track explains why certification without genuine knowledge, or with reckless disregard, could support an inference of fraud for a jury. A labeled comment, set apart as the author's view, closes the brief.
Court, year, parties
New York Court of Appeals, 1931: a factor that lent against a certified balance sheet, suing the accounting firm that certified it.
Three facts that decided it
Thirty-two numbered copies, no lender identified to the auditors, and receivables inflated by fictitious entries that a careful audit could have questioned.
Negligence: no duty
Privity or a relationship approaching it is required, and Glanzer v. Shepard is set apart because that weighing served the buyer directly.
Fraud: a question for a jury
Certifying as known what the auditors did not know, or doing so recklessly, could support an inference of fraud, so a new trial followed.
Where New York took the rule
A labeled comment noting that New York later set out a test for near-privity, still the narrowest of the approaches states take.
Where marks go in AC502 Unit 3
A holding that reports only that the auditors won is the error graders strike first, and here it is doubly wrong, since the auditors did not win on fraud. Briefs that merge the two causes of action into one result misread the reason the course assigns the case. Stating the negligence rule as a flat bar on claims by third parties overstates it: the court kept a path for relationships approaching privity and for fraud. Glanzer is often omitted, yet it is how the opinion draws its line, and a brief without it cannot explain why the weigher was liable and the auditors were not. Procedural history tangles easily, because the negligence verdict was set aside, reinstated and then reversed. Long quotations from the opinion show reading rather than understanding.
Get a AC502 Unit 3 example written to your instructions
Name the decision assigned for Unit 3, with any brief template from your instructor and the rubric. A brief with holding and rule kept apart, and a second issue track wherever the court decided two questions, is returned in 24-48h. First samples cost nothing. The brief treats a published opinion as an academic exercise and counsels no one.
AC502 Unit 3 questions, answered
Why brief a 1931 case in a graduate course?
Because the rule it announced still frames accountant negligence claims in New York and shaped the alternatives other states adopted. Courts that reject it define their own approach against it. The example's comment makes that point in two sentences, so a reader sees why the decision appears in readings on accountant liability rather than as legal history.
Should the brief say the auditors were careless?
It should report what the court said, carefully. The opinion treated the evidence as enough for a jury to find negligence and even to infer fraud, which is not the same as a finding that the firm committed fraud. The example keeps that distinction, because a brief stating the auditors were found fraudulent misreports the procedural posture of the case.
How is the fraud holding stated without overreaching?
Narrowly. The example states that an auditor who certifies figures as true on its own knowledge, with no genuine basis for vouching for them, may be found to have acted fraudulently, and that gross negligence can support that inference. It does not claim negligence and fraud merge, which is the misreading graders tend to deduct for here.